BENGALURU, May 30 -- In 2018, Doddalahalli Kempegowda Shivakumar, showed his crisis management skills when he moved the party MLAs to a resort in a bid to save the fragile H D Kumaraswamy led alliance government. Though the government fell, D K Shivakumar emerged as Congress's foremost crisis manager. A year later, after emerging from Delhi's Tihar Jail, where he spent 50 days, following his arrest in a money laundering case linked to tax investigations, Shivakumar stood before supporters, visibly emotional, and declared: "My loyalty has been proved." After his release, he repeatedly said he was sent to jail for protecting the party. Since then, the party has sent him across states to manage crisis. In February 2024, he was sent to Himachal to prevent fall of Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government after six Congress MLAs voted against the party nominee Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who lost. He has been party's special observer for recently concluded Assam assembly and 2023 Madhya Pradesh assembly elections. On Thursday, Karnataka chief minister, Siddaramaiah, declared he would be the next chief minister at a breakfast meeting with his cabinet colleagues before resigning. Unlike Siddaramaiah, Shivakumar's journey to the chief minister's office has been through the party organisation and gaining confidence of the party high command. For Siddaramaiah, it was through ideological positioning and building a vote base of backwards. "DK's rise shows that the party has rewarded him for his organisational and crisis management skills," a senior Karnataka Congress leader said. He added that his skills were not only used in Karnataka but across states. "The real test to emerge as a mass leader will start now," the leader said. Born in Kanakapura, Shivakumar entered electoral politics through Congress in the old Mysuru region before winning his first Assembly election from Sathanur in 1989. Over successive elections, he consolidated his standing in the Vokkaliga (his caste) belt of southern Karnataka while steadily expanding his role inside the party machinery. His move to Bengaluru for higher studies became an important turning point in his political life. Shivakumar studied at National College in Basavanagudi, where he completed a Bachelor of Arts degree and became active in the National Students' Union of India (NSUI). "Even then, he was an intensely organisational person, more interested in building personal and political networks," said a leader associated with him since NSUI days. His rise within Karnataka Congress politics coincided with the rise of former Karnataka chief minister S M Krishna, the party's prominent Vokkaliga leader. Shivakumar has publicly acknowledged Krishna's role in shaping his early political career. Krishna later joined the BJP. D K Shivakumar's political relationship with Siddaramaiah came to define the Congress party's internal structure in Karnataka over the last decade. The two leaders represented different centres of influence within the organisation -- Siddaramaiah drawing support from backward class mobilisation and welfare politics, Shivakumar from organisational control and Vokkaliga networks in southern Karnataka. Party leaders credited Shivakumar for 2023 assembly polls win saying he rebuilt booth level structures, strengthening local coordination and maintaining close engagement with party workers across districts. As a reward, Shivakumar was appointed as deputy chief minister and retained as Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president, a rare dual role for a leader. In his personal life, Shivakumar married Usha Shivakumar in 1993. The couple have three children - daughters Aishwarya and Aabharana, and son Akash. His elder daughter, Aishwarya, is married to Amartya Hegde, son of late Cafe Coffee Day founder V G Siddhartha and grandson of S M Krishna. His younger brother, DK Suresh is also a Congress politician....